A Five Point Guide to the Art of Ana Mendieta
Emily Steer, AnOther
July 2026
In less than two decades, Ana Mendieta made a profound, lasting impact on contemporary art. Born in Cuba in 1948, she was exiled to the US at the age of 12. She first trained as a painter, then embraced a gutsy, experimental range of art forms, at times using animal blood from butchers, plants, burnt wood and her own body in the work. Mendieta was deeply connected with the Earth, creating powerfully political pieces with natural materials which sometimes reflected the Cuban landscape. Displacement and otherness, felt so strongly in her own life, thread through her pieces, which demand a guttural response or highlight a jaded inaction in her audience. […]